Triplet by Timothy Zahn Page A

coming—travel here’s a bit riskier than on Shamsheer and it’s a good idea to have someone making sure you don’t just disappear out in the wild somewhere.”
    He glanced at Danae, saw her swallow visibly. “I see,” she said with forced calmness. “A shame we don’t have sprites on call back home—seems a pretty efficient way to send messages.”
    â€œThe novelty fades after a while,” Ravagin told her dryly.
    â€œI suppose so.”
    They walked in silence for several minutes more, and after a bit Ravagin noticed her throwing frowning glances at the sky and the landscape around them. “Anything wrong?” he prompted.
    â€œI’m not sure,” she said slowly. “The light seems … funny, somehow. Not bright enough or something.”
    He nodded, impressed in spite of himself. Most visitors noticed the anomaly eventually, but few picked up on it this quickly. “Karyx’s sunlight is about ten percent dimmer than that of Shamsheer, which in turn is that much dimmer than sunlight on Threshold. Have you ever been to Earth or Ankh during a partial solar eclipse?”
    â€œAh—yes,” she said, understanding flickering across her face. “You’re right; that is what it’s like—the sunlight’s the right color and all, but not the right intensity.”
    â€œYeah. Only it’s not an eclipse in this case—the sun’s just dimmer. Just one of the sizeable collection of things we don’t understand about this place.”
    â€œBut the stars are the same as you see from Threshold, aren’t they?”
    â€œAs far as we can tell, bearing in mind we can’t bring in the necessary instruments for an exact check. No, all three worlds are in the same place in the universe—every study anyone’s ever invented has come to that tentative conclusion. But remember that there’s no particular reason why the suns of the three have to be the same. Certainly the terrains of the worlds are different, so we’re not just experiencing different dimensional manifestations of the same planet.”
    â€œHow do you know?” she countered. “I mean, the equivalent spot on Shamsheer is covered with dense forest—how do you know it didn’t have all these mounds, too, before the tree roots wore them down? And who knows what Threshold’s landscape looked like before the original inhabitants blew it into the stratosphere?”
    A pat answer rose to Ravagin’s lips … and stayed there unvoiced. How had the savants and investigators come to that conclusion, come to think of it? “Well … there’s a good-sized ocean inlet about seventy kilometers west of here at Citadel that definitely doesn’t show up in either of the other worlds,” he said slowly. “On the other hand … there’ve been some tremendously powerful spiritmasters in Citadel’s history, and if one of them had decided he wanted the city to have ocean access, he might very well have been able to force an elemental to dig that inlet for him.”
    Danae shivered suddenly. “With an elemental he could probably have gotten the whole ocean dug for him. Unless their power’s been exaggerated.”
    â€œIt’s hard to exaggerate elementals’ power,” Ravagin said, feeling his stomach tighten. “Almost as hard as imagining the kind of damn fool who would try invoking one of them in the first place. I don’t even like working with demons and peris, personally.” With an effort he forced his mind back to the original question. Could the worlds in fact be more identical than was generally conceded? With some difficulty he tried to imagine a superposition of the Shamsheer and Karyx maps …
    â€œThe Morax Forest east of here could be the same as the Darcane back on Shamsheer,” Danae murmured. “Just receded to the east a hundred kilometers or